I'm home and I have hundreds of details to share, but for now I'm going to relax since my fingers aren't quite up to their pre-surgery typing dexterity. I'm thrilled to be home, I'm feeling good and I know it's going to get better from here.

Maybe pictures later. :)

And isn't that man of mine sneaky? And for the record, I am every bit as funny as I think I am. I think...

Hello again everybody. It's the Fiance once again, in what might be his final post. My better half is doing quite well. It was an uneventful night, although this morning she did spill a cup of apple juice all over herself. OOPSIES! But other than that, she got seen by both occupational therapy and physical therapy today , both of which cleared her. The doctor's have cleared her as well, as long as she can get up and walk around and she eats something. We're working on both, and this morning she did a lap around the east wing and ate two pancakes. Go her. So, she may be discharged today, my guess is it will depend on how late they want to do discharge paperwork. Either way, I would expect an update from her today or tomorrow. Hope all is well for you,The Fiance

Hello again. It's the Fiance. For those who haven't been checking Katie's other site, Katie is doing well today. She has been moved to a regular room, has much fewer lines in her, and is able to get up for short distances. Unbeknownst to us, she is also off pain medication, and is tolerating it well, in the short amounts of time she is actually awake. Oh, and there was a breif mention of her possible going home tomorrow, though I would think Friday is more likely. Either way, my tenure here will be brief. Anyway, I'm exhausted, so I'm gonna keep this short and sweet, as I can never match the wit and humor Katie (thinks she) brings to this site. Hope all are well,The Fiance

Hello everybody. This is the Fiance committing what I am sure is one of the cardinal sins of blogging, here to update you without Katie knowing. She'll get over it. The surgery is over and it went very well. They did not have to put her on a vent after extubation or anything like that. She is sleeping comfortably right now and that's really all that is known. Much to what will eventually be Katie's dismay, they do not have wireless internet in the hospital, so updates will be few and far between, but good or bad one of us will try to update you, after which I will go on pretending Katie does not have a blog so that she can feel free to write whatever she wants without having to think of me first. Thank you all for your help and well wishes, it meant a lot to her over the past couple weeks. She feels very loved and it will surely speed her recovery. Hope all is going well in your respective lives,The Fiance

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The BrainMonday, November 26, 2007

Pre-op is done. Highly uneventful other than my high blood pressure and racing pulse (yea, I'm a little anxious, weird right?) I met with a nurse who asked 800 questions and then stuck q-tips up my nose to check for MRSA. Then I had some blood drawn, gave the only urine sample I've ever given that didn't make me wish that I didn't have a bladder and then we met with Hot Anesthesiologist. Oh my goodness gracious. He was married and surely not more attractive than The Fiance, but he was nice(...to look at). He wrote down 3 times for me that I was concerned about post-op nausea and vomiting and he put a star by one of them, just to make sure it got noticed. :) He answered a lot of questions and dropped the bombshell that I probably won't be allowed to wear real clothes the whole time I'm inpatient, which I am none too thrilled about. Harumpf.

Then my mom and I went shopping for any and everything we could ever need and then set up the Christmas tree (fake!) and Menorah (real!) and now we're vegging out and doing a whole lot of nothing.

Tomorrow I go in two hours prior to my surgery for the complete history and physical and all the surgical prep (they're not shaving my head until after I'm unconscious, ditto on the cath). I may end up with a central line and will have an arterial line, but other than that, it's what we expect- a big-ass incision on the back of my head.

The procedure is as follows (possibly not in this order, but you get the essence)- incision to remove small part of cranium, then remove small part of C1 vertebrae, then cut through the outermost lining of the brain (dura mater, which is german or some other language for "tough mother" heh) where they'll add a patch on it to increase the room for my gigantor brain.

Easy peasy, right?

I should be in the hospital until at least Friday, possibly through Monday. I likely will not update here and I'm not going to have Kim update here, but if you'd like to venture to my other site (which I know I've never linked here, but for this I will) and see the latest news, the address is: (removed, if you want it, email me...if you need my email address, leave a comment on the latest post and I'll get it to you)

I will miss you and will be back at the computer as soon as I am physically capable of doing so.

1. Family meetings can go well. It's all the little voices in your head warning you of impending danger that are the real problem. And it's classically funny when your step-dad thinks that the antipasti appetizer is the entire meal and he fills himself (with seconds!) of that before the elaborate Lazagna/salad course. And then the tiramisu.

2. McDonald's should never provide Happy Meal toys where you can rocket propel things, otherwise 2 very tired travellers might do that for literally almost an hour until the one mature one (who was too manly to get a happy meal) tell us that we should go to our gate.

3. 5:45am is way too freaking early to arrive anywhere. And hence, it's time for me to go to bed. I will be up later, but I will be studying feverishly for the last exam that I've hardly given a single moment of time to in the past week. Oh flipping well.

I've gotta keep this short since I have a boatload of studying left to do for my last exam and I need to stock up on sanity since my mother is finally meeting The Fiance's mother tomorrow. So this is an audience participation. Anonymous comments are fine, as long as they're not mean, so now I will ask you...

4 curious questions:

1. If you could have any car, regardless of gas prices, air polution, cost, insurance, etc, what would it be and what color would you get it in?

2. If you could only have one book for the rest of your life (bible not included, that's a cop-out), assuming no other entertainment would be around, which book would it be, and why?

3. Who would play you in a movie? Which actress would you play in a movie?

4. What was the greatest invention of the 20th or thus far the 21st century? and why?

6. My friends. I hate my job with a burning passion, but there are a lot of really nice people who work there. They have made my transition out of work so much easier than I thought it would be (that's not true, a little part of me imagined running out of there with my hands up screaming "I'm free" and never looking back, that probably would've been easier than coordinating all my materials) and they gave me a lovely present yesterday at a nice lunch, which was a complete surprise to me. I don't know how I'd manage this whole situation if it wasn't for them. Well, except the ones who were bent over at the waist laughing at me yesterday when I got called up and prayed for in front of the whole school. I'm not thankful for those ones.

5. Technology. Were it not for technology I wouldn't be on this blog or able to spread my...um...wisdom. Yes, wisdom. And love. And optimism. I wouldn't be having the impending neurosurgery that could potentially provide such a renewed quality of life (speaking of which, um, did I mention I'm going to have to take a short blogging time out? Yea, because apparently this brain surgery stuff is moderatly painful and I'm going to need to rest, who knew?). I wouldn't have so many of the things that are a crucial part of my life. And maybe this seems superficial, and maybe it is, but I know that technology has enhanced my life so greatly that I am thankful for it. And in this category is all the people I've had the pleasure of "meeting" through technology. I'm thankful for you, you, you, you, you, you and all of the rest of you reading who I can't link to, but who I'm so very thankful to be able to interact with over the world wide web.

4. My faith. My beliefs and the higher power that I believe in, are a huge part of my ability to get up in the morning. I don't want to preach because I believe that we are all entitled to our faith and that it is very personal, but I am ever so incredibly thankful for the security that mine brings me and the kindness of others sharing in it with me.

3. My cat. I can't tell you how much I love her. The fact that she actually meows all angry like when The Fiance sneezes, or how she's got severe enough Stokholm Synodrome that if you hold her in your arms against her will long enough she'll start purring. I love her and am thankful for her, even if she loves The Fiance more than me.

2. My family. My family drives me crazy. Literally outright insane, but they are such a huge part of who I am and how I came to be. Not all of my past was good, my childhood was far from ideal, but there was never a lack of love for me from the people important in my life. The fact that I caused my grandmother to breakout in quarter sized hives from the sheer thought of my having brain surgery (I'm not even joking) and that my family is campaigning people to pray for me is just overwhelming. I'm so thankful for all of them, and I love each and everyone, even if I don't really like them some of the time.

1. My man. He's not perfect, but he's perfect for me. And yes we fight, and yes we argue, and yes we have hit a bumpy road recently, but I know that 30, 40, 50 years from now, he is the person I want next to me, no matter how bumpy the road we're travelling is. I have never felt so loved or felt as much love for anyone as I do everyday that I'm with him. It's amazing and wonderful and exciting to know that I have the rest of my life to experience this love, and there's no way to explain how thankful I am for that.

7. When I rapped Eminem's "Lose Yourself" at a karaoke bar in Athens, Greece. Or at least I assume it was embarrassing, frankly I don't remember doing it, but I've seen the video. Yikes.

6. When I was in 4th grade an I wore a pair of thin yellow pants that you could see through to my days of the week underwear. And I was wearing a pair that said Thursday when it was really only Monday.

5. Today at work when I had to get up in front of the whole faculty and student body to be prayed for. Don't get me wrong, the sentiment was lovely, I was embarrassed because the skirt I put on this morning had a slit, which ripped up about 6 inches so that it was crotch level and I had tried to close it with about 10 bobby pins, but I still looked like a stripper. In front of my whole work. Oh and she mispronounced my name again. Not good.

4. When my mom and I forgot to change our clocks back and walked loudly into church an hour late, and thinking that everyoone was being quiet because, you know it's a church and not because it was immediately after communion, we kept on talking until the person next to us was kind enough to point out the time change.

3. When I told my friends Dad last weekend (after too much champagne at his daughter's dry wedding) that I would tell the "pirates to fly safely" on the plane the next day. Oops.

2. When I walked up and kicked who I thought was my sister in the back of the knee at a restaurant. Turns out, it wasn't my sister. Double oops.

1. My sophomore year in high school I got caught passing notes in class, which wouldn't have been such a big deal but see, the teacher that we had's wife had had a baby about 2 months earlier and it then died of sudden infant death syndrome. It was horrible. He had a picture on his desk of his older son holding the baby the day before it died and I passed a note to my friend telling her how sad it was and how I didn't know how he was holding his life together and he picked it up and read it, thankfully not to the class. I have never been so mortified ever. (And then my senior year of high school the same teacher's wife died of breast cancer. He had a very difficult life and not a day goes by that I don't wish he'd never seen my note.)

Before I go through the 8 countdown let me say that a) my physics tests is over and it was ridiculously easy; b) my stomach is terible today and I can't tell if it's nerves or the pestulance that's being passed around; c) there is nothing I want to do less than start reading for my next test. NOTHING. Except maybe think about having brain surgery in 8 days.

8. I have not one, but two tattoos. Location and description are are going to remain secrets.

7. I cheated in high school English on almost every vocabulary test I took. That's what happens when you put someone in the seat next to their best friend and have them trade papers for grading. I did not cheat on the final exam though, I felt like that gave some karmatic balance to the whole thing.

6. I hate dogs. There, I said it. I hate them. Big ones, little ones, all of them. They all smell, they have no respect for property and they're never as cute as anyone thinks they are. No, I don't want to walk your dog. No, I don't want to pet your dog. In fact, I want to delete the memory of smelling, I mean, meeting your dog.

5. I secretly have always wanted to be a doctor, but at the same time, I'm very secretly afraid of failure and in medicine the stakes are just too high. I guess that's one of the cool things about The Fiance. I'm getting to live just a little bit vicariously through him.

4. I have dreams about childbirth often. I do not know why this is.

3. I have a birthmark in a very private region. No, I will not describe that either.

2. I am afraid of horses. I used to ride them very regularly and I was always scared to death that it was going to buck me off or bite me. I don't think in all the years I rode that I ever took my hand off the saddle horn, ever.

1. I want to be famous. Not actor famous, more like created or invented or did something great famous. I want to be remembered as someone who DID something. Who affected change and who made the future better in some way. I don't like attention that much, but I would love to get credit for doing something good.

So that whole bit about studying all day today turned out to be a little more like, lie in bed all day, take a lot of anxiety medication, eat a lot of cookies, read a lot of webpages and otherwise not move. I did, very briefly, look in the general direction of my physics book, but that was pretty much the extent of it. I only need to make a 50% on it to get an A in the class and I can get a -10% and get a B in the class, so I'm going to categorize my concern about this test as pretty damn low, much like my desire to do anything that involves being vertical today.

Who needs physics when you can sit around all day and wallow in the anxiety of the fact that I'M HAVING BRAIN SURGERY IN 9 DAYS.

Obviously the copious amounts of anxiety meds are doing their job. At least the muscle twitches stopped with all the tranquilizing.

P.S. I'd like to also issue a formal thank you to Vh1 for airing two days of full seasons of America's Next Top Model. I cannot tell you how you've helped facilitate my procrastination. Bless you former music channel, bless you.

(This one was originally called 9 things I hate about myself, but I toned it down a little. And I'm going to follow it up with a positive one tomorrow, but I felt like starting with what I love about myself would be a little braggy, you know?)

9. The aforementioned procrastination. I have tried so much to make this change, and yet, I still procrastinate all the time. Sometimes I catch a glimpse of what life is like when I do things on time and I love it. And then I get another bill from a collections company and suddenly re-lose the ability to do things in a timely fashion.

8. I am horribly horribly indecisive. I've actually paid to get The Fiance to make decisions for me. I'll buy him dinner if he'll choose the location. I don't know where this specific issue comes from, but it's bad. And he's not especially good at decision making either. Many a ridiculous argument have spurred from this.

7. My hair is in a constant state of not straightness and not curliness. I can make it do either, but I'll never be able to wake up in the morning, run a comb through my hair and leave. And I know we all want what we can't have, but I'm pretty sure that no one wants to get up an extra half an hour early even on lazy days to do their hair.

6. My (kinda nasty) habit of picking at my lips. I have excessively chapped lips and I mess with it all the time. I don't even realize I'm doing it until someone points it out or I've made myself bleed. I'm pretty sure there's an actual name for that kind of subconscious habit, but that's less important that my desire to make myself stop.

5. A lot of my past. None of which I care to elaborate on.

4. My inability to forget anything. Seems like a positive trait, yes? No. This is something that plagues my daily existence. If something bad has happened, it's permanently engraned in my mind. Anything negative anyone has said to or about me rings in my ears forever. I cannot move on, like ever. I can put on a happy face and pretend like nothing's wrong, but I will always keep that image or that sound bit in the back of my head.

3. My total inability to lie. Do you know how much easier my life would be if I could lie? I'm terrible at it. To me, for a lie to seem believable, you have to implant as many details in as possible. So if The Fiance were to ask me if that shirt I was wearing was new and I wanted to lie and say no, I'd start rambling about the location and events that led up to the purchase of the not-new shirt and how could he not remember it? Whereas, simplying saying, "no, it's not new" would more than suffice. I lie pretty efficiently over email, but only because I can proofread like 1200 times to make sure it's all air-tight.

2. My constant anxiety. As someone who very much likes being in control of everything, not being able to control that drives me completely bananas. What I wouldn't give to wake up one day without my mind worrying at full speed about any and everything.

1. My belly button. It's big, it's deep and even when I weighed far less than any person ever should, it was still excessively large and ugly.

I've decided to embrace the panic over the surgery and do a number themed meme each day between now and then. If nothing else it'll guarantee a few minute reprieve each day from whatever excessive amount of work I'm surely doing. Since the brain surgery is 10 days from now...

10 Things you don't know about me

10. I snore, apparently quite loudly. The neurosurgeon assured me that this was a symptom of my overgrown brain, but I don't think that's of any consolation to anyone in this house.

9. I am a terrible writer. Terrible. In college I had to take a remedial writing class. I think it's an issue of attention span. Somewhere around the 3rd page, I just forget what I'm doing and string a lot of big words together until the spell/grammar checker stops making the red/green squiggly lines.

8. I love to bake. Pies, cakes, cookies, anything. I looooove to bake. My waistline does not share the same love.

7. I didn't see snow in person until I was 12 years old. Until then I truly believed that hail was like a mini-snowstorm.

6. I was informed of the fallacy of Santa Claus at 6 years of age when my older sister told me in a fit of mean-ness. I've never ever seen my father so angry in my life.

5. I am not a morning person. In fact, I'm not even really a mid-morning person. I'm an afternoon person. I don't have trouble getting up most days, in fact, on weekends I never sleep in later than 8 or 9, but I don't like to talk to any other humans until around noon.

4. I'm a grade weenie. I will do anything to get ahead in a class. It's not a terribly endearing quality, but I have always been excessively studious. The Fiance tells me all the time that it's good that we didn't go to college together because I'd have hated him. Or maybe it's that he'd have hated me. Either way, life would not be the way it is now.

3. I had my tonsils taken out when I was 20 and I didn't take any prescription pain medication after, save for the Demerol I got immediately post-op which caused an anaphylactic reaction. I do not recommend trying to control post-surgical pain, even just tonsillectomy pain, with children's tylenol. I wonder why I've gotten 12 different lectures on taking whatever pain meds are offered me by the doctor after neurosurgery. People are so weird.

2. I can't wait to have children. It's not that I want them now, but I'm in love with the idea of having them someday. It makes me feel so extraordinarily priviledged to realize that I get to bring a life into the world. And while I know that children make messes, smells and noise, I know that someday I'm going to love being a mother.

1. One of my biggest fears in life is of throwing up. Yes, I know how it sounds, but it's true. I have had more anxiety attacks than I care to think about over the idea of throwing up. As you can imagine, that's not at all making the anxiety about the neurosurgery any less. If I make it out of this ordeal without vomiting, I think I'm going to write a book about how amazing I am.

And on that breathtaking picture, I'm done. See you tomorrow, for something with the number 9 in it. Probably 9 ways I'm being raped by physics.

High: I got a 94 on my Anatomy practical and thus an A in the Anatomy lab, which is awesomely awesome.Low: Whilst I am done with the Anatomy lab I still have 2 (TWO) regular Anatomy & Physiology tests left to take in the next 8 days.

High: The students in my classes are planning a big shenanigan for my last day at work.Low: I still have 2 more days at work whilst The Fiance is done for Thanksgiving and gets to fly home tomorrow.

High: I finished going over one of my study guides for my anatomy test tomorrow.Low: I still have another one to go through and oh yea, have to actually absorb a little of what I read. Which is really no big thing because my study guides are only like, you know, 46 pages typed. Single spaced. I wish I was joking.

High: I only have to get a 46% on my physics final to get an A in the classLow: I definitely do not know 46% of the material and my will to survive, let alone learn, is waning tremendously.

High: I have someone here who loves me and whom I love tremendously.Low(s): My head hurts, I'm whiny, I don't want to study, I want to go home and relax a little, I'm having a multitude of cows about the upcoming surgery, I feel so hopelessly out of control of my life, and oh yes, what's that? I have 3 more tests in the next 8 days. I know it seems like I've mentioned it a lot, but truly, I could tell you that a trillion more times and still feel like there is a general lack in understanding of how stessed out I am.

Low: That I let it all get to me this much, and that I can't find the perspective to realize that these problems are not so big.

So, I wear a medical alert bracelet, because, who knew? I have a few health problems and my work requires it (well, not requires, but suggests in as much as, if you die here from an allergy or pre-existing condition, we're going to tell your family that it's your own fault). So, I wear one. I paid a small fortune for one last year (a nice one, too) and then I left it at the beach when I was falling down a lot...I mean playing beach volleyball.

I bought a new one in August and literally between then and this weekend, have not taken it off once. And then I was informed that no jewelry was to be worn in the wedding besides that which was given to us. So off came the bracelet. I carefully secured it in my makeup bag and that was the last time it was seen.

So now I have to get another one. Only, I need it as soon as is humanly possible, like, say, before I enter a hospital environment. So I go online and buy one, not the cheapest one because, let's face it, a girl's gotta have some glamour somewhere. And then since I need it soon, I have to rush it. Well, there's 15 more bucks on top of the already exorbitant price of a small silver sterling bracelet. And apparently rushing it does not actually include getting it here faster, so I have to pay expedited shipping. I don't even want to talk about how much that added to the total. But, one is on it's way and should be here by Monday before I leave for California on Tuesday. Holy hell.

And while losing my medical alert bracelet twice is stupid, it's still much less stupid than trying to kill a bug by hitting it so that you smushed it between your hand and crotch at a high velocity. Especially if you have external genetalia. Not that I'm saying that anyone in this house did that today, but if he did, it would have been much more stupid than losing a small bracelet. Just sayin'

After seeing Nashville and realizing that in place that aren't New Orleans (where it's going to be 80 degrees tomorrow) are experiencing fall, I had a need today to have little bits of things that remind me of fall. And since I still can't seem to locate my sense of humor, I'm going to share with you a lovely simple fall recipe, because really, you should make this. My mom gave me the recipe, the first time she made it was for Thanksgiving a year or two ago. After frosting the cake the grabbed the cinnamon sugar out of the cabinet to sprinkle on top and about halfway through covering the cake in a generous blanket of what she thought was cinnamon sugar, she realized she had in fact, grabbed garlic powder. She claims she scraped the frosting off and re-did it, but it absolutely had a garlic after-taste. So here's the recipe. I prefer it sans-garlic.

Pumpkin Cake

Ingredients:-One small can of pumpkin (I don't remember how many ounces, but you can get the big-ass can or the small can of pumpkin puree NOT pie filling, and you want the non-big-ass one)-One spice cake mix-Cream cheese frosting (absolutely optional)

Directions:-Put cake mix and pumpkin into bowl. Mix. Pour (it will be thick, so it'll be more like scoop) the batter into a greased 9x13" pan. Bake according to cake mix directions. You can't undercook this, there are no eggs in it, so it's okay if it's soft, it's much more dense than a regular cake.-When cool, frost with cream cheese frosting. Or don't. Or if you're one of those health freaks, you can put a dollup of cool whip on it. Or nothing, because it's pretty good alone too.

Pictures could be forthcoming, but considering the number of things I should be doing right now and the vast quantities of cake I'd like to eat over the next day, that seems dubious at best.

So last time I checked in I was in Nashville, now I'm home, with much to share. I had many witty things to say and I think that only getting 4 hours of sleep sucked all the funny right out of me. Oh and it's going to be long, mkay?

Friday, after 4 1/2 hours of sleep, we had the bridal luncheon during the day, which was nice, though a little bizarre because there were kids from my elementary school there who I haven't seen in literally 10 years. All of us from California and gathered together in Nashville. Then from there we ran a few quick errands, then went to the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner.

The rehearsal was fine, there are 9 bridesmaid's so there was a lot of coordinating to do (we had to walk in on the 7th step on the same foot that the person in front of us was on, we all looked semi-mentally deficient). And the officiant was the groom's brother and it was his first wedding and he actually went through the whole ceremony there. It was...lengthy and I'm pretty sure that he technically married them at the rehearsal, but it was very heartfelt. The rehearsal dinner was at a line dancing place (the blackhorse? something with the word horse in it) with live music. The singer really really wanted to be Kenny Chesney, but alas, a cowboy hat and snug jeans does not a great singer make. It really just makes everyone watching a little uncomfortable.

Friday night The Fiance got in pretty late, and I think we managed about 6 hours of sleep that night because we met my friend from college for breakfast at 8am. From there I was driven straight to the wedding site where we began the getting ready session. Oh the hair. See, this always happens to me. I have good hair. It's not too thick, it's not too thin and it holds almost any style. It's a huge blessing, but somehow, I always end up with the WORST wedding hair. So I sat down to be styled and we talked about a "sleek" (remember that, we're going to go back to it) ponytail with a little volume in the front. This is a hairstyle I actually sport on occasion, so I was thrilled. And then she started ratting my hair, and before I knew it I was literally 4 inches taller. How is that SLEEK? Isn't sleek synonymous with smooth? Rather than with beehive? It was bad. Really really bad. But, the bride liked it and I wasn't going to say anything. Plus, let's be honest, no one was looking at my hair (except The Fiance, because he was convinced it possessed special powers. The sheer size of it may have modified the pull of gravity in the Nashville area).

The wedding was held in Union Station, which I was told was recently renovated. It's beautiful. The wedding was lovely, better than the last two that I went to combined. (Yes, that last statement probably makes me a horrible person, but I've come to peace with that.) It was only a little weird in that the groom has the same name as The Fiance and I had a hard time holding it together because I felt like I was previewing my wedding. And I have to admit, it was pretty darn cool. Everything went perfectly and both the bride and groom looked amazing.

The pictures are gorgeous, so gorgeous I'm genuinely considering flying him out to do our wedding. And aside from it being ass-cold the whole time and having to be outside for a portion of the event, it was really wonderful. We danced the night away (I actually broke my shoe doing the "Cha cha slide") and enjoyed our time in Nashville immensely. I'm not going to lie, I definitely would've loved it a little more if I'd gotten more like 13 hours of sleep from Thursday night to Sunday morning, but whatever. It was beautiful and we had a great time.

And Tuesday begins the final exam marathon, and at this point, I'm just so excited for it to be over, I cannot even begin to explain it. And then my brain screams because that area I've shut off regarding the surgery tries to panic, but so far I've kept my cool most of the time. Once I'm done with exams I can panic, for now it's all about controlling that which I can control. Because I have a feeling that soon, the list of things I can control is going to be very short. Not unlike this blip of an entry. :)

Told you it would be long and lacking humor. Hopefully the humor and brevity will return soon. Don't hold your breath. Unless you live in New Orleans, in which case, I smell so bad that that isn't a bad plan. Now I'm really done. Really.

I'm in Nashville. It took two planes and a few small miracles to get me here (the first being that I haven't made a hole in my head to try and alleviate the most relentlessly painful headache I think I've ever had ever) but I am here. I endured a 50 minute security line at the New Orleans airport (on a THURSDAY) behind a woman who did not speak english, with a teeny tiny baby. But I don't know if the baby was hers or the other woman or the the man's or some combination therein, but I spent a long time trying to figure out the love triangle while the lady nearly decapitated the child because YOU HAVE TO SUPPORT HIS HEAD. Anyway, I lost track of them afterwards and my people watching entertainment (and horror) was over.

I had a very uneventful flight to Miami, yes, you read that right, New Orleans to Nashville via Miami, I mean really, why not? But once in Miami I had to switch gates 3 times because it's more fun when you run around the entire perimeter of the airport in 15 minutes...twice. At some point between New Orleans and Miami the pen I was using as a pseudo-highlighter broke and I now have green pen up to both my elbows. I checked the mirror about 30 times to make sure I didn't have it all over my face too. I think that was God's way of saying that that was not the time to try to do Anatomy reading.

And then I arrived in Nashville and now I'm in bed. Do check the time stamp because yea, it's almost 2 in the morning and I'm blogging. Why? Because I took a 5 minute nap on the plane and now my body thinks that it's all rejuvinated. Trust me when I tell you that it is not at all rejuvinated.

And so begins the wedding weekend, which will be followed up with the finals-are-going-to-kill-me week. Okay, let the jealousy rage forth.

As the last lab was winding down, my professor got all excited and informed us that she had a "special treat" for anyone who wanted to stay around a little while longer. Thinking that since this our last non-exam lab it might actually be something cool or interesting, I stayed.

Five excrutiating minutes later she popped in a video and said, "I had to convince here, but I finally got my sister to give me the video of her cataract surgery, come and watch if you want."

I then promptly gagged and left my last non-exam lab of the semester. The end is near my friends.

I just checked Google Analytics (aka my current obsession) and I have my first person visiting from a keyword search (welcome!). I have to be honest, I'm not sure if I should be laughing because the combination of words is pretty funny or sad because someone googled this, but my first keyword search hit was:

Whatever I may have said about Google being too invasive the other day, I take it back. Because I got Google Analytics hooked up to mah blog and now I AM Big Brother. I know where you live. I know where you sleep at night. I know what you eat for dinner. That's not true. But I do know the city you are in when you visit. And I know for a fact that my mother isn't reading and that in and of itself is highly comforting.

And though I was pretty sure that either Louisiana or Minnesota would be my state with the highest number of visits but it was actually Illinois. Ca-razy.

Oh and did you know that real live Canadians are visiting? Me neither. But apparently I have 15 visitors from the North (doncha know? Wait, is that Candian or Irish?). Awesome.

Since thing are about to get very very hectic. I'm still going to post, but I'm not going to lie, things will be a bit more sporatic than usual.

This week I'm off tomorrow (suckers! ha! bet you wish you had my job (no you don't, trust me)), I'm working normal hours on Tuesday-Thursday (with my regular Anatomy lab quiz Tuesday) and then Thursday night I'm flying off to Nashville to be in a wedding of which I am completely unprepared for. Shoes? Hair? Makeup? Pshaw. Who needs to think ahead about little details like that? At this point I'm just hoping that the dress she has still fits me. That'd be a bitch.

We get back from Nashville Sunday morning, when I shall start freaking out about my serious lack of time for everything. Then I have my final Anatomy practical on Tuesday November 13th, then my second to last Anatomy test on Saturday November 17th. Then I have my Physics final (which I'm going to bomb pretty badly. Incidentally there's pretty much no joke that can be made about "bombing." I was going to say that I was going to bomb it like _______, but I couldn't find anything not offensive to stick in there. Damn terrorists, all ruining all my jokes) on Monday, November 19th. Then I fly home to California on Tuesday.

Whilst in California we will be visiting all the families, eating Thanksgiving dinner, then doing food tasting for the wedding, then doing cake tasting for the wedding, looking for wedding bands (hello Tiffany!), arranging a meeting between the Fiance's parents and my mother (if there's a big explosion in California the Saturday after Thanksgiving, that would be it...) and at some point, possibly sleeping. We leave California Saturday night at midnight and arrive Sunday morning at 5am.

Sunday night (November 25th) is my Anatomy final exam, which if you'll notice is one week and one day after the previous anatomy test and one day shy of a week less than my physics final. I'm sure my studying will be supurb there.

And then that week shows up.

Monday, November 26th is the pre-op appointment, where they've already promised to do several "swabs" [shudder] and a complete history and physical. Yum... And then it's the big day. We don't have the official time yet, which is okay because I think too many details might make me even more anxious, if that's even possible. But from there I have no obligations but to recover. And re-grow my hair and/or figure out wedding hair styles that involve low buns to cover my soon-to-be bald spot.

So now, if I'm not around, chances are I'm avoiding doing at least one of the things above.

I use gmail and generally I love it. Except that Google, in one of it's attempts to stick itself into every inch of my computer life, feels a need to put little links all around my emails. It's a little creepy because they use keywords from the emails to make the links, and so often it feels like they're watching me and reading my emails. A girl's gotta have some privacy somewhere.

Last night I was responding to an email from one of the cake companies we're looking at for our wedding cake when I looked up at the google link. It said, "Like Cake? Take the fat quiz! http://fat-quiz.com"

And then I died inside just a little bit, because you know what? I do like cake.

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About Me

I'm a 26 year old former teacher turned full time graduate student. I live in Southern California after a 3 year stint in New Orleans with my husband Slappy (formerly The Fiance) and our cats (yea, we're those people).
In February of 2006 I was diagnosed with Chiari Malformation, which is a fancy way of saying that my brain was too big for my skull (get it? overflowing brain). On November 27th, 2007 I had brain surgery which allows my brain to exist indefinitely in my spinal canal. 13 staples, one cow heart lining and a multitude of doctors and medications later, I'm living a much improved decompressed life.